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“On my sister’s bed.” She wanted to tell him that it was not because he liked Ingrid best, because he was careful to show no favoritism. But Mike thrashed about too much to permit D.C. a good night’s rest, and as for herself, she didn’t enjoy the idea of D.C. awakening at five in the morning, walking the ridge of her long figure, and peering down at her as if to ask if she were going to sleep the whole day through. She had tried pretending he was not there, but that attitude only prompted him to take a good-morning swipe across her cheek with his sandpaper tongue, an act more telling than a dash of cold water. After a few mornings of that, she had dumped him unceremoniously out of the win­dow into the geraniums. For days afterwards he pretended she did not exist.

Zeke was saying, “I should see the cat right away.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call him ‘cat.’ It bothers me. It’s just as if – well, as if he were a cat. His name’s D.C.”

She hurried on. “I’m curious. Why do you want to see him?”

“I need fingerprints – I mean, paw prints.”

“What in the world for?”

“We might pick up his trail from last night if he stepped in mud or dust.”

She stared in amazement. “I’ve heard the FBI was thor­ough but I just wouldn’t – I wouldn’t believe – “

“Neither would I, Miss Randall. But cat or no cat, if we’ve got a desperate situation, we’re going to work it out lead by lead.”

She said she couldn’t leave her job but she would call the school and arrange for Inky to return home at the noon break. “But don’t hold it against D.C. if he seems unfriendly,” she cautioned. “He’ll be sound asleep and may not like the idea of being rousted out.”

Returning to the office, Zeke hurried past a couple of secretaries who would have asked him to a bowling league tournament if he had paused.

When he had first arrived in the Los Angeles field di­vision a year ago, the switchboard operator, who was a strawberry blonde in her late thirties, had warned him that he wouldn’t “last a month with those ghouls around.” And it was true the girls had used all kinds of pretexts for dates, such as would he like to help with plans for the annual picnic? He, in turn, had invented illnesses and urgent business, and had survived by walking briskly and adopting a desperately busy attitude. Somehow, though, it didn’t seem in keeping with his stature as an FBI agent to bring in a desperate criminal one hour, and the next behave like a fugitive.

He found Bob Newton where he had left him, huddled over his reports. “We’re all set for the surveillance tonight,” he told Newton . “She’s letting us use a back bedroom, and the cat leaves the house about dark, which should be around seven thirty-five. I’m on my way out there now to meet him.”

Newton said, “I wish I wasn’t tied down here. I’d like to see how you go about interviewing a cat.”

“I’m getting paw prints, a photograph, the usual. I’m figuring on working this the same as any case.”

Newton rose to stretch his big frame. “You’re lucky to draw a cat. I get so tired of people.”

Zeke grinned and placed the map of the Randall neigh­borhood before Newton . “As far as she knows, the cat has never ventured more than two miles, to this point here where one Lillian Nelson lives. The cat comes around two and three times a week, Miss Nelson says. She’s assistant to an executive out at 20th Century-Fox, Perry Lieber, and will co-operate with us all the way.”

He took a second to study the map. “I thought we’d show Helen Jenkins’ photo around within this radius, to postmen, clerks in supermarkets and drugstores, apartment house man­agers and janitors – really go through the area. And then we’ll get busy making discreet checks on everyone who’s on the voters’ registration lists, although that will take time, what with about four thousand names.”

Newton nodded approval. He liked the way Zeke con­ducted his investigations. He was not only thorough but moved fast.

Newton cautioned him, “Keep it all quiet, Zeke. Remind everyone working with you to move discreetly. You know without me telling you that if those two guys smell an in­vestigation, the consequences could be tragic. If they panic, the odds are overwhelming they’ll murder the victim.”

After they discussed the number of agents and the kind of equipment they would need for the operation, Zeke said, “I’ve got a problem. How’m I going to file him in the in­formants’ card index?”

Bob Newton raised an eyebrow. “The cat?”

“Please. Don’t refer to him as ‘cat.’ It does something to his ego. Now if I put him down in the reports as D.C. Randall, you know the Bureau. Some guy back there on a desk will tear into us, want to know what the idea is of using initials. And if I put him down as Darn Cat Randall, I hate to think of what will happen. They’ll figure I made it up, that I’m being funny. And what about using Randall? Who ever uses a last name with a cat? But you know the Bureau. Full names.”

Newton pulled the phone over. “I think we’d better talk with Washington .”